Memorial Day; Yorktown, Virginia

Today I visited the Civil War federal cemetery in Yorktown, Virginia. There are soldiers from both sides, white and black, buried there. I had been there before; it's just up the road a bit, off the beaten path and quite serene. I returned at the behest of my fellow OS&RR peeps who were interested in learning whether the parks department allowed flags on the grave sites of CSA soldiers, as well as Union soldiers. The answer, to a small degree, is yes.

*Clicky picture for embiggened view*

As you can see, it's not that big for having over 2100 buried there. Only about 750 are identified. The stones contain the plot number for the stone, and any known information about the interred. Far too many of those buried, over 1400, are unknown. Many of the unknown are buried together. This particular cemetery also did not "segregate:" Blacks, Whites, Union, Confederate, are all buried together inside the walls of this somber site, although there are only 10 CSA soldiers here.

There is a second cemetery for only CSA soldiers at a "nearby" location which is not on any map to which I have access.

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I took the kids with me on this trip for a history lesson. It was very hard for me. Our lesson ended early; I could not carry on. All I could do is allow my heart to cry for these men. I cannot be prevented from hoping for peace during this strange era of aggression and fear, nor can I keep myself from feeling a sense of loss as I look across the rows of flags and stones.

Will my soldier's mission end like this?

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Yorktown is the scene of a few military "firsts":

• first land mines (planted by CSA)
• first aerial reconnaissance (conducted by Union)

Yorktown was also the scene of the last siege during the Revolution, and the first siege of the Civil War. Initially, the Union attempted to keep their war dead buried in a uniform fashion with as many details as possible carved into wooden headboards. As the war progressed, soldiers from around the peninsula were sent to be interred there. After a fast-and-furious skirmish, many were buried where they lay with nothing more than a large stick to mark the location.

About a year after the war was over, the war department decided to exhume the war dead and give them proper burials in a federally-funded cemetery. Not all could be identified. In some cases, several soldiers were buried together. Soldiers from about 50 burial sites around Virginia were also re-interred here.

Only 10 of the soldiers interred in the "official" cemetery are Confederates, and their stones are marked as such. There is no official list of the war dead buried in the Confederate cemetery, nor is there a burial count. According to the historian Jim Bishop in his 1955 book, The Day Lincoln Was Shot, he states that the US "would never official count the Confederate dead, would never even keep records of the Confederate wounded." Although private historians have these numbers, the United States of America does not recognize them.

Why this is so is simple. The United States of America never did recognize the formation of the Confederacy, and never looked on the seceded states as being anything other than anarchist militants. In today's terminology, the Federal government exercised martial law in order to stamp out the rebellion. Those who engaged in the rebellion, therefore, deserved no recognition for their part.

This is rather cold-hearted, in my opinion. The Confederate soldiers were of two groups: draftees with no choice and volunteers who believed in their cause. This mirrors the state of mind of the Union soldiers, who could have been divided into two identical groups. I hope none of them died in vain.

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There are many ills that are still injuring this great nation: racism, religious bias, poverty. Worst of all is apathy. Visiting this cemetery has brought to mind that there is still hope out there, if only we'd look into ourselves to find it. The saying really is true: it only takes one person to change the course of history. Let it begin with us.